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Chris Hill was born on 6 February 1912, Bishopthorpe Road, York, to Edward Harold Hill and Janet Augusta (née Dickinson). His father was a solicitor and the family were devout Methodists. He attended St Peter's School, York.[1] At the age of 16, he sat his entrance examination at Balliol College, University of Oxford. The two history tutors who marked his papers, recognised his ability and offered him a place to forestall any chance he might go to the University of Cambridge.[2] In 1931, Hill had a prolonged holiday in Freiburg, Germany, where he witnessed the rise of the Nazi Party; he later said it contributed significantly to the radicalisation of his politics.

Hill was becoming discontented with the lack of democracy in the Communist Party.[2] However, he stayed in the party, unlike many other intellectuals, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He finally left the party in the spring of 1957 when one of his reports to the party congress was rejected.[1]

After 1956, Hill's career ascended to new heights. His studies on 17th-century English history were widely acknowledged and recognised. It was also the year of the publication of his first academic book; Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament.[1] These were based on the study of printed sources accessible in the Bodleian Library and on the secondary works produced by other academic historians rather than on research in the surviving archives. In 1965, Hill was elected the Master of Balliol College.[1] He held the post from 1965 to 1978, when he retired (he was replaced by Anthony Kenny). Among those of his students at Balliol was Brian Manning, who went on to develop understanding of the English Revolution.

Many of Hill's most notable studies focused on 17th-century English history. His books include Puritanism and Revolution (1958), Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (1965 and revised in 1996), The Century of Revolution (1961), AntiChrist in 17th-century England (1971), The World Turned Upside Down (1972) and many others.

He retired from Balliol college in 1978 when he took up a full-time appointment for two years at the Open University. He continued to lecture thereafter from his home at Sibford Ferris, Oxon.

Hill married Inez Waugh (née Bartlett) on 17 January 1944. The 23-year old was the ex-wife of Ian Anthony Waugh and daughter of an army officer, Gordon Bartlett. Together they had a daughter, Fanny, who drowned while holidaying in Spain in 1986. Their marriage broke down after ten years.[1]

His second wife was Bridget Irene Mason (née Sutton),[5] the ex-wife of Stephen Mason, and a fellow communist and historian. They married on 2 January 1956. Their first daughter Kate died in a car accident in 1957. They had two other children: Andrew (born 1958) and Dinah (born 1960).[1]

A Turbulent, Seditious, and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628–1688 (1988), ISBN 0-19-812818-5 -- published in the United States as A Tinker and a Poor Man: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628-1688 (1989), ISBN 0-394-57242-4